Opened my mouth, but to my right, someone else spoke before me — whistling through his teeth.
— You cretin. You idiotic woman.
Felt compelled to look at Covalschi, a pale, boney dwarf with twisted lips, large eyes pressed into a heavy, rickety head, hunched forward. There was a weak, livid light and no way to unglue myself from the image. That went on for a few moments till a faint came over me. .
Woke in the morning, the next day or the day after that, in a peasant’s house on a hard, clean bed. My bolster had been watched over by the lady professor with the “big heart,” the master of the house told me and “all thanks was due” to her and not himself.
Returned to the University, without accomplishing the meeting that was the reason for my trip. Therefore, my other plans went astray as well. The faint had made it impossible to leave for home, for my planned meeting with Virgil Mehedinţi.
Five months or five years later, Father visited me — reestablished, or rehabilitated as they say. He was ready to work again with all his strength. He explained to me that he had been implicated in “the Mehedinţi deviation” — by no means a matter of personal guilt. . association with an old friend who was forced out of leadership. . too highly valued, though, to be found guilty of non-existent illegalities. Vulnerable from several directions, acolytes of flimsier positions had been targeted. But it wasn’t like other calamities of the moment, he added. Some had been condemned to do hard time or had even been executed. . it’s a difficult period. It’ll pass. . we’ve been through so much, we’ll get through this too. . we’ve got to be ready to begin again, to stay alive. He hadn’t given up the grade-school rhetoric.
Had graduated, then, and was dreaming of selling tickets at a movie theater in Africa. Left for the worksite. Had little news from home. Only returned to the old town when they celebrated Donca’s coming of age. Was already working at the large new factory in the capital. My afternoons were hurried, full — they vanished, rapidly.
Declined the music professor’s invitations to chat, except once every couple of months. It was a matter of perpetually listening to her confessions: she considered me a friend, poor thing, and she went on complaining of loneliness, though she was very active and always falling into complications with new and old acquaintances — which turned into dilemmas, and she wouldn’t abandon them at any cost — and she always complained about the school, the little terrors.
For me, it was hard to find the smallest scrap of suitable advice.
• • •
Really, the light vibrated differently then. Mornings from another time. The starched shirt collar fluttered like the stiff wing of a bird. My wish was to be flying in a fairground ride in the middle of summer, up, up, high as can be, almost to the sky. The steel rods would scream and screech, hit the peak, then whir whizzing down, striking the wooden floor. Setting out on the stairs: every time the void in my stomach rose and fell.
We saw each other again in the afternoon. Then the evening wind chilled her shoulders. She trembled. The windows blew open with a sound of wooden applause. Together, in the deserted corridor, crushed under a heavy, white ceiling and the little room’s lingering sky: the same gentle nightmare for daydreaming girls. The smoke of night chased hesitations away. We were caught in a bewildered embrace of orphans, and it couldn’t last.
Everything was the same as before for a while: nothing had happened — this was proven in everyone’s cordial interactions, with neighbors from the office and apartment, with former classmates, former relatives, former professors, former wives of some former pals, with the punctual Armenian woman who would bring me her sly little smile, and with the chief engineer’s blonde woman. No one reproached my hypocrisy. The spy, Mişa, followed me without gusto; the flautist visited me between concerts. Eyes following me perpetually, the girl with rough hair and big eyes continued to smile at me. We would meet in the corridor as if nothing had happened, sometimes having time to joke, without really acknowledging each other and without forcing recognition. Several months after her peculiar departure from the factory, I noticed her absence, however. She had a kind of codified smile, a timid gait, pale hands, and — yes, it was only natural to miss her. She had left with excessive discretion, and hadn’t seemed disturbed: a colleague visited the factory where she had been transferred and confirmed that she looked well, charming as always, on the quiet side, and still young. This addition, “and still young,” sounded strange: a consolation that seemed like a reproach.
For a while now, the afternoons had been boring. Got rid of the flautist, gave up the blonde too, and no longer smiled at the woman who worked in the same office as me. Closed myself up in solitude for several months. . several months or more, it’s not clear to me. Meanwhile, Donca had become a university student, and she seemed to need more money. Quite cheerfully, she asked me for small sums each week. Surprised by my sedentary and lethargic moods, she became worried and suggested spending New Year’s Eve with a group of her classmates from the Spanish Department. There were a lot of nice-looking but very young girls chirping around her. Didn’t think it would be possible to win their confidence. In the end, agreed to attend a “preview” with my sister, a kind of pre-party meant to help those who didn’t already know each other.
Donca stopped by to pick me up. She was wearing a big black beret that looked like a wig. The way it contrasted with her blond complexion and blue-green eyes suited her perfectly. She caught me staring at her, and ripped off her hat and started flouncing her long black hair, which stopped me, dumbfounded, as if seeing her for the first time. Then she rushed to calm me down.
— Don’t be scared. It’s my real hair. You can pull it. See! I dyed it, and everyone says it looks great. Finally, a veritable Dolores Ibárruri, to go with our department.
Silencing faint echoes, the name struck me. Donca had a carefree way of referring to the illness that had secluded her — or so our parents maintained. Still, I saw no sign of those past crises, either because of her ability to hide them or my lack of subtlety.
Naturally, I had to ask, “Where’s Fred?” Donca shrugged her shoulders in a way that suggested, “He’ll be there too.” She already seemed disinterested in her fiancé, for whom she’d confronted our confused parents. To me, her fiancé had seemed attractive enough and a decent guy. On the awkward side, it’s true, but really taken with the charms of the girl who found him “extraordinarily profound,” “extraordinarily cultured,” and “extraordinarily sensitive” — which said more about her than him.
In any event, found myself in an elegant house, with many rooms that were connected by sliding doors. The carpets were rolled up, the lights turned low, and people broke off into groups or couples. Animated by the atmosphere, Donca kept inciting everyone to dance. Her own body vacillated unexpectedly, as if she felt herself in danger. Eventually she withdrew into a corner — near an unknown man, while her fiancé was occupied with the tape recorder. Naturally, the middle-aged guy who was courting her kept pouring her fresh drinks — and she emptied them while he told crude jokes in a very loud voice. He was trying to cancel their difference in age, and he was succeeding marvelously with the girls around, who found his tough libertine type très jeun, just what they liked. The other girls envied Donca, the favorite of the moment. The two of them got up again to dance. They entered each other’s arms impatiently; he took advantage of their closeness and the dark with both hands. He was a slimly built man, a bit over forty, with a lightly pockmarked face, thick hair over a strongly lined brow, narrow shoulders, big hands, and a youthful laugh. He moved lightly, bending his partner’s body.